Return to solid fuel cookers on the cards in Kilkenny?

It may be a return to solid fuel cooking in many Corporation houses in Kilkenny due to the increasing cost of electricity and gas.

At Monday’s Corporation meeting Mr T Crotty suggested that in view of rising costs the members might consider what the future policy might be in regard to facilities for conversion to solid fuel cooking.

He said that a number of tenants in the past had cookers removed and fireplaces installed instead - and they cooked by either gas or electricity.

Supporting, Mr P Smithwick said that a number of people had their solid fuel cookers removed because some of them were not satisfactory. They now regretted having done so because of the dramatic increase in the cost of electricity and gas.

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He understood that solid fuel cookers now being installed were of a much better quality and he felt some tenants might like to be given the opportunity of reverting to solid fuel cookers.

In the developing situation he thought the Department of Local Government might consider making a grant available for people who wanted to reconvert a kind of reconstruction grant.

Ald M McGuinness said he thought the Minister would be very foolish to give a grant for a changeover because solid fuels were going to follow quite closely in the increased prices for other fuels.

He criticised the ESB who, he said, had come along eight months after the oil crisis and put a surcharge on people’s bills, just because they didn’t know at the time that the cost was going up.

The Minister would have to take steps to help people who could not afford to pay, because that category was getting larger and larger.

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